Many conventional operating systems support the spooling of print jobs. Spooling involves buffering data that is transferred from a processor to peripheral devices, such as printers, to reduce processing delays. The buffered data is stored on secondary storage devices, such as hard disks, in a format that is device-specific (e.g., specific to the printer). When spooling print jobs, if a printer is unknown, the print job cannot be spooled. Moreover, if a print driver for he target printer is not yet installed, the print job cannot be spooled. This poses an especially troublesome problem to users who operate in disconnected environments, such as mobile users that employ portable computers.